Red
by Sephulbadis
Summary: Reno wonders what the heck Cloud's dog wants from him, but reluctantly agrees to dinner. Over fatty pork, Red stuggles to express the plans he's been harboring for so long. The lurid saga concludes!
1. The Phone Call

The small phone buzzed, swiveling in place as it vibrated, and brayed out a scrap of a formerly popular radio tune. Reno chewed his mouthful of noodles at it, and it shut up for a few seconds.

It inevitably rang again, vibrating a few centimeters across the top of the table and chittering against his bowl. The proprietor of the dingy little shack glared at him over the huge, steaming pot of broth that determined the flavor of everything she sold—he knew, because he'd tried to order the 'bo soup once, and found out that it tasted exactly the same as the pork and the vegetable. He wiped a splash of broth off it and clicked the phone open to see who was interfering with his lunch. The phone's display claimed that Cloud was calling him. Huh.

"Hey," he said, leaning back in his chair.

"Reno," said the familiar voice, "I was going to ask you—"

"You're still doing delivery, right?"

"Yeah, but—"

"Great. I was going to call you anyway." Reno propped his feet up on the chair opposite him. "I've got a bunch of crap that needs to get out to Kalm and I don't feel like going, there's some other stuff I have to do tomorrow and Kalm's about as cool as a sand-dragon's ass anyway, so…"

"Yeah, fine," Cloud said, but his voice over the phone was distracted-sounding, and faint as though he was holding it away from his face. "Just…hang on a second." Reno heard a scuffing noise and a clattering thump as the phone dropped. There was a truly odd wet _whuffing_ sound. It sounded…snouty.

"Hey Cloud, man, if you let your dog lick the phone while I'm on it I'm going to be pissed off. That is _low_."

"I'm…sorry to reach you this way," replied a voice much lower than Cloud's, and differently-accented. There was another wet whuffle. "Can you hear me?"

Reno switched the phone to his other ear. "Yeah, I can hear you…who's this? Are you the kid's dog or what?" He took advantage of the lengthy pause to get another clump of noodles into his face.

"My name is Red Thirteen," said the phone.

"Awesome," said Reno, chewing. He waited. Did he have enough time for a beer?

"…hello?"

"Yeah, what."

"Do you recognize that name?" Cloud's dog was using a tone of voice suggesting that Reno was missing out on something very significant.

"Never heard it before," he admitted cheerfully. "Does everybody in the club get a code name like that? I kinda want one." He heard the phone rattle again.

"Look, damn it, can't you be serious for once? He just wants to talk to you." That was Cloud.

"We were talking! He was definitely saying words."

"It's _important_ , Reno."

"Fine, whatever. Put your dog back on."

He heard Cloud set the phone down on something and the thumps of boots walking away. "This isn't going as well as I'd hoped," the dog snuffled. It sounded sad. "I'd…like to meet you and discuss this in person, Reno. Soon."

"Eh, I'm not doing anything tonight. D'you eat, you know, food?"

"I eat food," the dog confirmed solemnly.

"Right, yeah. There's a place just off Silence Street right outside the downtown core, a little Hangang joint with a yellow sign and some tables in front. They do barbecue. Probably let pets in. Get there at eight."

"I will."

"See ya." Reno clicked his phone off, paid the proprietor for his lunch, and walked out of the dim shack into the gritty sunlight of a Midgar afternoon. He'd made a dinner date with a domestic animal. He'd be screwing chocobos next.

He fought the urge to ask Rude what he thought about the whole deal. He was pretty sure what Rude would think about it anyway, specifically that he'd be screwing chocobos next, so he didn't ask. He was a good little corporate drone for the rest of the afternoon, except for the part where he didn't actually do much of anything. And he left early.

It wasn't like it was a real date anyway, he thought on the tram ride home. The dog just wanted to talk to him about something.


	2. The Dinner Date

Hell. He'd never asked the dog what it looked like.

Reno scanned the street. It was one of the main ones, nice and wide, but it barely had room enough to let a car pass now that the restaurants along it had all put their tables out. The whole street was lined with clusters of wage slaves in loud groups, eating things that smelled really, _really_ good and getting a nice solid start on a weeknight of drinking.

He looked again, harder. There was an office chick with a little rat-dog in her purse, that wasn't it. Further down the street, a big shaggy bastard had its head in a trash can. He could see a scruffy reddish-brown backside poking out from under a table not too far away—was that it?

"Hey, Red!" Reno ambled toward the table. There were two women sitting there, giggling tipsily and sharing a plate of something that looked like it was mostly made out of hot pepper paste. He smiled easily at them, and waited for them to stop laughing.

"That your dog?" He pointed to the beast lounging under the table.

"Yeah," said the one with longer hair—the cuter one, Reno decided. "He's mine, you _like_ him?" She spluttered into another laughing fit.

"She's drunk," her friend explained happily, pronouncing her words with exaggerated care. "Sonya, stoppit. He's still there." She smacked her friend across the back, then tried to sock her in the shoulder and missed.

"Look. Hey. All I wanna know—does it _talk_?"

"Sure, he talks! Say something, Rufus!" The dog rolled to its feet and obligingly emitted a series of deep woofs, then stood there panting and looking pleased with itself. Still giggling, Sonja flopped to one side of her chair to nuzzle it. "Good _boy_! Good Rufus. Who's mama's wittle nuvvies?"

Feeling slightly unnerved, Reno withdrew. The Hangang joint was just half a block down, and though there weren't any visible dogs hanging out there it wouldn't hurt to get something to drink before the thing showed up.

After the guy in charge had got him settled down at one of the outside tables and brought him a bottle of soju—plus a spare, just in case—there was still no sign of a big talking beast with designs upon him. He tugged his phone out of his pocket, and dialed up Cloud's number. It rang several times.

"Strife Delivery," answered a woman's voice, finally.

"Hey, Tifa? That you?"

"Yes, it's me. Hi, Reno."

"Heya. You got something nice on? I mean, lacy and all that?"

He could hear her sigh. She was so serious, honestly, somebody ought to do something about that.

"Reno."

"What?"

"If I told you I was wearing nothing but a thin film of melted butter, would it help you get to the point faster?"

"I think I just came, actually."

"Well, then. Can I take a message for you? Cloud just went out."

"Actually, all I got is a question." He craned his neck and leaned back in his chair to check the street again: no dice. "What's his dog look like?"

"…what?"

"Cloud's dog. What color is it? How big? Does it have a goddamn cell phone? I'm waiting for it."

"Oh. You mean Red?"

"Sure. Red Five or something. The one that talks. What does it look like?"

"He's red."

Reno dosed himself with a swig of soju. Normally he took things a little slower, but 'he's red' called for immediate action. "Okay, it's a red dog named Red. What else?"

"His tail's on fire, he's a little over a meter high. And he's not a dog, he's sort of a…lion-thing, I don't know what you'd call it. And he's got beads on."

"Thanks, Tifa."

"No problem, Reno." She hung up on him. Obviously she'd decided to go slip into a thin film of butter or something. He wouldn't want to delay her, of course.

He checked his watch. Dammit, it was a quarter past. This was the right restaurant, right? He looked at the sign. Yes, it was the right restaurant. He'd been here dozens of times, it was the right goddamn restaurant and his goddamn dog was _late_. Time to step inside, have a piss. Your food always came while you were in the toilet, and if you did it right your date also came while you were in the toilet. They were powerful things.

Sure enough, it worked.

"Hello," whuffled the beast, looking so out-of-place on the folding chair that it hurt Reno's eyes to look at it.

"Yo. Red, huh?" He settled back down into his own chair.

"Red Thirteen, yes. Though it's not a proper name, is it?"

Reno shrugged. "I've heard worse. My partner's named Rude. Says he has two brothers, Crass and Boorish."

"I prefer to go by Nanaki," said the beast evenly, not even twitching a whisker at Reno's joke. He'd thought it was a pretty good one.

"Fine, Nanaki it is. Hey, food. Let's get some food." He raised a hand to wave the waiter guy over. "You like pork or what? They got pork and goat. Me, I like a nice bit of hot por…heh. Hey man, two things of that fatty belly meat, all right?"

He didn't notice, until he'd finished ordering and returned his attention to Nanaki, that the creature looked acutely embarrassed. Its ears were flat as a week-old beer, and the weird plume of flame on the end of its tail sputtered under the chair.

"Hey, Red. Ease up yo, it's just some pork. Were you friends with it or something?"

" Reno, I have no idea how to begin. I have many, many things to tell you, and…most of them will seem strange to you."

"Look. If you're my dad, we can just get that out of the way right now."

"It's not that."

"Good thing."

The waiter brought out the pot of coals that fit into the hole in the center of the table, laid the grill back over it, and set the plate of sliced raw meat on their table next to a pair of tongs. The idea was to cook your own, in combination with the onions and whole hot peppers that came on the side. Standard Hangang stuff— Reno loved it. He saw Red eyeing the raw meat, and picked up the tongs to fend him off.

"It gets cooked first," he stated firmly. "Back off."

The beast settled back on his haunches. "Fine, fine," it agreed. It sounded tired. "But as I was saying—"

"You want the fatty piece there?"

"—as I was _saying_, you may be aware that Shin-Ra's research division has in the past attempted certain experiments—"

"I'll have it then. Mmm."

"—experiments of a biological nature, in general, and of genetics in particular."

"You know how good this junk is wrapped around a pepper?"

"Are you paying any attention to me at all?"

"Huh-uh." Reno chewed a roll of cooked meat and a slice of onion. "Stopped listening when you started talking about work."

"Professor Hojo tried to breed me with Aeris Gainsborough."

Reno choked. "The _hell_?"

"It's true. I'm the last of my race, you know." Red's nose dropped until it nearly touched the table-grill. "I was stolen from my home in Cosmo Canyon, taken into the lab, and given the case number Red Thirteen. I understand that he was trying to save us from extinction. It is a noble thing if one takes a broad, general view, but it is much harder to appreciate in person." He coughed as smoke from the cooking meat drifted into his face. "Poor girl."

"No _shit_," Reno agreed. "Did it work?"

"Complete failure, I'm afraid. Aeris is gone, and I'm still the last."

"Man." Reno leaned his chair back and took a few meditative swallows of soju, since he'd forgotten he had it. "That's rough. I wouldn't be able to get it up in a lab either."

"You have no idea." The beast's shoulders hunched up defensively, and it shivered in the warm evening air. Reno reached out to give its coarse mane a comradely ruffle, and it seemed to provide some comfort. After a few seconds, it mustered the will to continue.

"That's not what I wanted to talk to you about, Reno."

"…If you've got something to top Hojo watching you breed with Aeris Gainsborough, I'm all about it. Shoot."

"I wasn't the first Red experiment. There were others, with different members of my species. I…have done rather a lot of research into this project, you see. I had unique opportunities to gain access to the relevant files."

"Yeah. Here." Reno plucked a bit of half-charred meat off the grill with the tongs and held it out. Red delicately nipped it from between the tines and chewed it with his mouth open. Reno didn't have the heart to tell him to knock it off, the dog's story was genuinely depressing. He hated sad stories.

"One of them succeeded, Reno." Red swallowed, and turned his one good eye toward the other man. "Only one."

"I don't like where you're going with this, Red."

"A hybridized child resulted. It was given to a human couple to raise, grew to adulthood, and eventually was returned to Shin-Ra where research upon it could continue without its knowledge."

"Take that crap _back_, yo. I swear I'll give you the rod if you say another goddamn word."

"Your 'health records' are conclusive, Reno."

Reno scrambled at his belt for the prod-rod that he knew he'd left at home, he'd left the goddamn thing at home _why_ had he left the goddamn thing at home? He stumbled up out of his chair, heedless to the squawk from the lady who caught it in the shin as it fell, and prepared to leap on the beast and tear its head right off its body if he had to. He was going to make it _shut the hell up_.

It didn't look like it was ready for a fight—perched there, on the chair far too small for it, with the smoke from burning pork wafting all around, it looked weirdly primordial and sadder than just about anything Reno had ever seen. He sank back on his heels. He was a Turk, he'd killed and done worse, but the damn dog looked like a kicked...eh, not puppy as such. Kicked puppy-kitten. He couldn't do it.

"I'm sorry," it rumbled. "Truly I am."

"You're still full of shit." Reno folded his arms. "I don't care what files you saw, I'm not a dog."

"No, you're not." Red's eye lifted, a faint hope rekindling. "You could be something much, much better. You're the sole hope for preserving our race—you could be the mother of an entire species! It might…"

"Don't say it, dog."

"…it might not be so bad. I've been practicing."

"All right, that is_ it_. NO. I'm _leaving_."

It was just too much for the human mind to handle. He turned and walked right the hell out of there, out of the street, and didn't stop walking until it was damn near midnight. The dog's howls had followed him out of the downtown core, but not once had he looked back. Not a goddamn chance. He was having nobody's goddamn puppies.

He overshot his apartment by a kilometer and a half and had to double back, then slept so hard that getting up for work the next morning was an act of will unsurpassed since his first few days of Turk training. But he made it, and after a few cups of the coffee sludge from the break room, he almost felt human again.

Human. Definitely human. Not half dog at all. And certainly not interested in freaky dog-sex with a dog he didn't even know. A dog that wanted him to do girl-dog things.

Rude's voice interrupted his ruminations. "Heya. The hell's wrong with you?"

"Rude," said Reno. Slowly, deliberately, he set down his cup. He stood. "Rude, I have something to say."

His partner watched him impassively.

"I'm a bastard, right? I mean we're _all_ bastards. You and me, we're both bastards. Right? Elena's a bastard, Tseng's definitely a bastard, Shachou is five or six bastards. Right?"

"Whatever you say, Reno. Sure, you're a bastard."

"Awesome. In that case, listen up." He cleared his throat. "Rude, I am a bastard—but I am nobody's _bitch_."

"Nice to know that, Reno. You been practicing that for long?"

"Couple of hours."

"Cool."

* * *

A/N: Asute readers may note that, according to the opening credits of Advent Children, Red has successfully fathered at least two children. Obviously Reno does give in, eventually, and smoking-hot interspecies relations result. Alas, that chapter will have to be hosted elsewhere due to its rating. :) 


End file.
